Around November 20, 1861, not long after the joint operations of Union army and naval forces had secured control of Hilton Head, Port Royal and Beaufort, South Carolina (October 29-November 7, 1861), there was a reported "general stampede" of enslaved families from neighboring plantations in an area known as Bluffton (southwest of Hilton Head) toward Gen. Thomas Sherman's camp. Northern newspapers reported that many of the freedom seekers had been shot by their masters for refusing to vacate the area with them. One female correspondent claimed in late November, "that the stampede of the negroes at Bluff on has ended, and that many of them were returning to work on the plantations, under the belief that they would be paid for their labor by the Government."